


Cared For

by likehandlingroses



Series: Awfully Sweet [1]
Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Gen, allusion to canon suicide attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-12
Updated: 2019-12-12
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:48:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21773209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/likehandlingroses/pseuds/likehandlingroses
Summary: The best of Thomas Barrow comes out when one of the children at Downton needs his help.
Relationships: Thomas Barrow & Anna Bates, Thomas Barrow & George Crawley, Thomas Barrow & Marigold Crawley, Thomas Barrow & Mary Crawley, Thomas Barrow & Sybbie Branson, Thomas Barrow & Tom Branson
Series: Awfully Sweet [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1569157
Comments: 71
Kudos: 498





	Cared For

**Author's Note:**

> Warning for allusions to canon suicide attempts and some depressive moods.

**1925**   
  


If she could have managed it, Anna would have kept her pregnancy a secret until the baby was safe in her arms. The stitch seemed to have done its job, but who could say what might happen further down the road? The longer the wait, the greater the chance for disappointment. And now that John was in on everything as well...if things went wrong again, Anna knew she wouldn’t dare for another go. She’d buy another one of those devices she’d picked up for Lady Mary and thank Heaven for the fact that she lived in a time where she wouldn’t have to put up with losing child after child.

At a certain point, to keep hoping would be madness and cruelty combined. She’d drawn a line in the sand, and now all she could do was wait and see if fate crossed it. 

In the meantime, she’d be showing soon, which meant everyone would share in whatever happened. A greater joy she couldn’t imagine, if things came off all right. And if not…

Anna shook her head, returning to the scuff on Lady Mary’s left boot. She wouldn’t help a thing by worrying...she tried to return John’s next smile; he was convinced there’d be nothing but blue skies ahead, and she hated to put a damper on his mood when there was no need. 

For better or worse, Thomas entered the boot room before John could say something reassuring for the fifth time since they’d settled down to work. Miss Marigold was tucked up in his arms, one hand reaching up to wipe the tears that hadn’t quite subsided. She was clutching her faithful teddy bear in the other hand. 

“I’m almost certain I saw it in here…” Thomas cooed, giving her a bounce. “Don’t you worry…”

Anna sat up straight. “What’s the matter?” 

“Miss Marigold’s misplaced one of Teddy’s eyes…” Thomas said, propping up the bear that was dangling in Marigold’s hand. Sure enough, the left side was missing an eye. “And I think I’ve seen it in here, so we’ve gone to fetch it.”

Anna smiled as he made a show of searching the drawers, finally happening upon the one filled with spare shoe buttons. He shuffled through before pulling out a round, black, shining one, and holding it up to the bear’s face. 

“Is that it, do you think?” he asked, as Marigold blinked away the last of her tears in disbelief. 

“How’d it get there?” she murmured, taking the button from Thomas and pressing it to Teddy’s face. “It won’t go…”

“It needs a little help, does it?” Thomas said. “I know just the thing…”

Anna exchanged a look with John as Thomas worked through the next bit of the scene—setting Marigold down on the counter, Teddy laid out next to her on his back as Thomas fetched a needle and some black thread. 

“Careful!” Marigold screeched as Thomas made for Teddy’s face with the needle.

“Not to worry, Miss Marigold, he won’t feel a thing.” Thomas’s word appeared to be all the assurance Marigold needed, for she waited silently for Thomas to finish stitching the new eye onto Teddy.

“There you are…” he said, handing Teddy back to her. “Back to normal, isn’t he?”

Marigold tapped the new eye carefully before clutching him to her chest and assenting to Thomas scooping her up again. 

“All better?” he said, looking just as pleased as she did. She dropped her head on his shoulder in answer, and Anna could spy her grin from across the room as she squeezed Teddy still tighter in her arms. 

“Just don’t thank Mr. Barrow too much before you’ve got the bill…” John quipped, and his smile didn’t do a thing to prevent the air being sucked from the room. 

Anna stared at Thomas fearfully—he’d been pale the past few weeks to begin with, and just now he looked as if only a dull, tired fury was keeping him on his feet. He said nothing before striding out, and Anna’s stomach fell. 

They weren’t going to convince him that he wasn’t being pushed out if they carried on that way...

“That wasn’t kind,” she said, though John already looked almost sorry. 

“I didn’t mean anything by it,” he insisted half-heartedly. 

Anna stood. “Well, maybe next time, you ought to.”

The damage had been done, but there was still time to patch some of it up if she was quick about it. Anna hurried after them, meeting Thomas before they’d reached the stairs. 

“Mr. Barrow!” she said, ignoring the frustration in Thomas’s sigh. “I didn’t get to see Teddy now he’s all fixed up. May I?” 

Marigold complied, holding Teddy out to her with pride. Now that the danger of her own pregnancy had started to pass, Anna could appreciate how dear Marigold was, all big eyes and smiles. 

“Oh, that’s very nice,” she said. “He’s good as new, isn’t he?”

Marigold beamed, turning Teddy’s face back towards her and tapping both of his eyes for good measure. “Yeah.”

“We’re lucky Mr. Barrow’s here to help, aren’t we?” Anna said, her hand on Marigold’s even as her eyes darted to meet Thomas’s. “It’s good of him.”

Thomas didn’t hold her gaze for more than an instant before dropping his eyes to some distant corner in the hall. 

“I’d better get her back up,” he muttered. 

“Thomas, about—”

“—don’t worry,” he sighed, his eyes closing for a long beat. “I’ll not cause trouble with Mr. Bates…”

“That’s not what I meant,” Anna said. “It’s kind of you to take the time you do with the children, and we all know that. Even Mr. Bates.”

Thomas blinked. “Don’t really do it to impress him.”

And if people thought Thomas was difficult to handle in an _argument_...

“No, of course not,” Anna stammered. “But he shouldn’t have teased you, and I’m sorry he did. _He’ll_ be sorry he did, once he’s thought about it.”

Marigold lay back against Thomas’s shoulder before squirming restlessly. Thomas placed a reflexive hand on her curls and didn’t answer Anna before turning to leave.

“Thomas…” Anna pressed. Thomas paused, though he didn’t turn back around. 

And how could she expect him to? What a dreadful thing to face—having to play-act a role you could never claim as your own, and to be mocked for it besides…

She had hardly been able to _look_ at the children only a few months ago, and he held them tighter than ever as his remaining days at Downton slipped away from him. He kept on hoisting them on his back and kneeling to speak with them, knowing that everyone looked at him with the ability to put two and two together. That they all might come up with pity or contempt, depending on their disposition...and how they felt about Thomas. 

How did he manage it, day in and day out? Anna knew she couldn’t bear it—not without breaking apart. 

“Please don’t go upstairs cross with yourself,” she said softly. “That’s who you cause the worst trouble with, when it comes to it. And you don’t have to. You shouldn’t.”

Thomas half-turned towards her, looking desperately unhappy. 

“If it were that easy…” 

But he almost smiled when Marigold pulled her arm tighter about his neck, murmuring something that only Thomas could hear. 

Anna watched them leave, hoping that Marigold could explain things in a way she’d failed to. 

* * *

**1925**

Sybbie knew Downton as home, and Tom was developing his own sense of a connection between the two. That sense—still growing and uncertain—had brought them back across the ocean and dropped them at the place where the greatest and most terrible chapters of Tom’s life had played out. 

There’d be more pages to come, of all sorts, and Tom would have to trust that there’d be more good than bad. 

Today looked promising—a tea party with Sybbie’s dolls—several of whom she’d only just reunited with, after “giving” them to Marigold upon their departure. She’d finally managed to finagle them all back to her side of the nursery (Marigold didn’t strike Tom as a particularly harsh negotiator), and it was time to celebrate. 

Tom suggested they hold it outside, which had led Sybbie into a patient explanation that outside parties were _picnics,_ not tea parties.

“Not always,” Tom protested, but Sybbie ignored him in favor of traipsing down the hall towards one of the sitting rooms that was usually ignored except during big house parties. 

“We can do it in Mummy’s luncheon room!” she proclaimed. 

Tom blinked. “ _Which_ room?”

Sybbie beckoned him through the door before answering, hurrying over to the wide window on the far side of the room, where a particularly comfy looking set of chairs faced the view. 

“When Mummy was working, she ate right here, by this window,” Sybbie said, standing on her toes to look out of it before turning back to Tom. “Right?”

Tom tried not to be too embarrassed by the fact that he hadn’t the faintest idea. That was why they were back at Downton, wasn’t it? So Sybbie could be surrounded by people who knew where she’d come from?

“Well, I didn’t go up here much during the war…” he admitted. “Did one of your aunties tell you that story?”

“Mr. Barrow told me so,” Sybbie replied. She’d started with setting her dolls atop the table between the chairs. “He ate here, too. And then they could talk.”

Of course. Tom had almost forgotten Barrow’s stint in the medical field. At the time, he’d looked on it with little more than contempt. A thinly veiled excuse for cowardice from a careless bully.

But that had been an age and a half ago, and the world seemed to have softened since then...Tom certainly had. 

And Thomas Barrow? Tom didn’t know if that could be called softening...it looked more like fraying at the seams to Tom. 

It was a dreadful thing. A wretched, horrible blight on the house, that a man had felt driven to such awful measures while staying there. Tom felt guilty of it, somehow. They’d started in the same place, he and Barrow. And what had Tom done to deserve the life he now led that Barrow wouldn’t have done, given half the chance?

Back then, Tom would have answered, “love someone.”

He couldn’t bear to think on it, now.

“Ah, I see,” he murmured. 

“He and Mummy were friends, right?” Sybbie asked. 

In truth, Tom didn’t know—Sybil had made it clear that his distaste for Barrow wasn’t an especially welcome topic of conversation, and that had been that. He’d heard that Barrow had been sick at heart over Sybil’s death, but at the time, it had been swallowed up in the knowledge of everyone else’s grief—that dull roar behind his own pain that hardly mattered but never let him rest. 

He was dear to Sybbie, but he was dear to all the children. A hidden kindness that Tom still couldn’t place. 

“I think they were,” Tom said, more confidently than he felt. “Of a sort, anyway...your mother was friends with most people.”

Sybbie was only half-listening: she’d spied movement back in the hall, and she raced through the doorway to catch the vanishing figure. 

“Mr. Barrow!” she called out. “We’re doing a tea party in the luncheon room, I’ll show you...come on!”

Barrow’s reply didn’t carry through the door, but Sybbie was apparently successful, for she crossed the threshold with Barrow in tow. 

“Right here!” she said, hurrying back to her dolls. “This is Mummy’s spot, right?”

Tom watched Barrow—he still looked ill, but Carson had said he’d insisted on taking up some of his duties again. He avoided Tom’s stare, though Tom didn’t detect the usual note of hostility in his avoidance. There was something warm and fragile in it, like a startled animal, terrified of being seen. 

“It is,” he replied, eyes fixed on Sybbie. 

“And you sat right here, right?” Sybbie tapped one of the chairs, and Barrow approached as if called, his hand catching the chair’s back and gripping it tight. 

“I did,” he said. “It’s a nice view—your mother liked watching the woods over there, see?”

Sybbie stood on her toes, and Barrow crouched down, and they looked out the window at a scene Tom couldn’t see. He almost moved to get a better look, but it felt too noisy, somehow. 

When they were finished, perhaps. 

“The sun hits the trees, and they almost shine,” Barrow said, a hand on Sybbie’s shoulder as they both peered out the window. “She liked that, you see.”

And there _was_ a softness there, after all. Tom hadn’t heard it quite so loudly until now. 

“Did she like jam sandwiches?” Sybbie asked. “That’s what we have.”

“She did.” Barrow was almost smiling properly, now. “Mrs. Patmore’s strawberry?”

Sybbie gave an eager nod. “Yes!”

“She put it on everything,” Barrow said, and Tom finally stepped forward. 

“She did, too,” he said with a laugh. Barrow looked at him—well, at his right shoulder, anyway—and the fear was back again. 

“Daddy, Mr. Barrow can stay too!” Sybbie said, looking between them. Not a question, but not quite a demand...a statement of fact: Mr. Barrow could stay. 

_Would_ stay, if she had anything to say about it. 

“He might have work to do,” Tom said, regretting it almost immediately when he saw the breaks in Barrow’s face. He straightened, still not looking at Tom. 

“Less and less, it seems…” he muttered. 

Undeterred, Sybbie tugged at Barrow’s sleeve. 

“Please!”

Barrow wanted to say yes—Tom could see it on his face. But Tom’s presence had stifled him. 

“I don’t want to—”

“—don’t leave on my account,” Tom interjected. Barrow looked at him properly, then—first in disbelief. When Tom didn’t falter, some of the color returned to Barrow’s face. 

“Well, then…” he murmured. “I have a minute to spare…”

Sybbie beamed before returning to her preparations, more determined than ever. Barrow watched her with a fondness sharpened by something wistful. Tom moved to his side—careful and easy. 

“Thank you,” he said, looking out the window. The view _was_ beautiful…Sybil had never been wrong about things like that. “For telling her about Sybil. She asks so many questions now, and I’m ashamed of how many I don’t have an answer for.”

He glanced at Barrow, who was staring straight ahead. 

“Lady Sybilwas kind to me—kinder than I deserved.”

And though the same thought had trampled through Tom’s mind time and again back in that different age, it was only now that he saw how unbecoming it was. How little it helped anything. 

“Don’t say that,” he said, and perhaps it was the tremor in his voice that pulled Barrow’s gaze towards him; his eyes were wide. “She gave so much to everyone she met, but you know what made it so wonderful? She knew how to give the exact right thing to each person. And you’d see them give it back, in their own way.”

The breath Barrow took looked pained, but he tried for a smile—one of those painted on ones that Tom couldn’t imagine ever fooling anyone. 

“You must wonder what we had to talk about…” he said, the smile doing little to mask the brittleness in the words. He was fishing for an anchor point on which to dock his own self-loathing. Someone else to blame—as if that would keep him afloat.

“If I do, I can ask Sybbie,” Tom replied without hesitation. “She’ll remember these things forever, you know?”

Underneath Barrow’s embarrassment, Tom could see he was pleased. 

“It’s all ready!” Sybbie announced, pulling them both to their seats. “Sit here and here...and Molly is sitting here, and Jill sits—”

Barrow finally met his eyes. “You’re sure you don’t mind?”

Of all the things for Thomas Barrow to be reverent about...Tom glanced over the table of dolls in various precarious positions, tiny sandwiches placed in front of them. 

They couldn’t possibly eat it all on their own.

“Why would I?” he said, pulling out his chair. “It’s good for her.”

Barrow gripped the edge of his own chair. 

“If you think so…”

“I do.” Tom paused before sitting, his thoughts standing on a threshold that until just a few moments ago had seemed impossible to reach. 

“And it’s good for you, too,” he continued, getting as close as he dared to mentioning Barrow’s case of the “flu” that had sent shock waves through the upstairs. “To remember there’s a little girl who knows you as the nice man who used to eat strawberry jam sandwiches with her mother.”

Thomas gripped his chair still tighter, blinking rapidly.

“You must think it funny…” he barely managed. The painted smile came through more vaguely than ever. 

Tom shook his head. “That Mr. Barrow’s just as real as any of them. And we’re all glad of it.”

Barrow’s shuddering breath helped him finally collapse into his seat, where Sybbie rushed to his side with another minute sandwich. 

“You get to sit next to Susie!” she said encouragingly. Barrow smiled at her—a real one, that left little trace of what had just transpired. 

“She doesn’t have the flu anymore, I hope?” he said. And Susie must have been the doll Sybbie took to visit Mr. Barrow when he’d been ill. 

“No, she’s all better now…” Sybbie reassured him. 

“You must have taken good care of her,” Barrow said.

“Everybody did!” Sybbie said, one hand reaching up to pet Susie’s dark locks. “We all made sure she rested and took her medicine, and now she’s all better.”

She spoke with such assurance—and why not? The world turned in frantic ways, but it would always be true that care was wanted.

It was what people were built for, Tom thought, watching Thomas make conversation with the doll sitting next to him as Sybbie bounced on her toes. It would find its way out, whatever pain or fear or weakness tried to stopper it. 

And it could always be shared.

Tom bit into his sandwich, and in another age, Sybil was sitting across from him in a pub, remarking that the things you learned when you were young were always the dearest--foods and songs and stories. 

“Not everyone grew up like you did,” he’d said, and she’d sat back with a huff.

“I don’t mean that it’s all wonderful,” she’d said. “But good or bad, you hold it close.”

As in most things, she hadn’t been wrong.

* * *

**1926**

If she’d been very clever, Mary would have kept Barrow’s return to Downton a surprise for George. She’d only meant to put a smile on his face, but the excitement had unsettled the poor thing. He’d started getting up before the sun and forgetting to clear away his toys...and if Mary had to answer one more time when Mr. Barrow would be arriving…

That’s what first children were for, she supposed—making all your mistakes. Baby Talbot would be told about nothing wonderful until that thing was just outside the door. 

Still, George’s idea to make up a cake had been sweet, and everyone downstairs was more than happy for an excuse to hold an informal party of sorts. 

Barrow would have to wait to have any of the cake—George had made a beeline for his arms, and it didn’t look as if he was eager to clamber back down any time soon. 

“Are you going to stay for a long time?” Mary heard him asking Barrow as she fetched another glass of wine. 

“I think so, Master George.” 

“Until I’m big?”

A pause, but one filled with more promise than the pauses that had caused hitches before his departure—those pauses had been icy and tattered and horribly sad...Mary hated to think of it. 

“I just might,” came the reply. Mary could see George’s face brightening, and she approached slowly; she wanted to watch for as long as she could before having to interject. 

George’s arms were wrapped about Barrow’s neck. 

“When I’m big, then I can do all the work, and you can play with my toys, all right?” He looked just like Matthew, when his face was set so solemnly. 

Barrow grinned. “All of them?”

“Yeah, because I can share.”

“That’s good of you, Master George.”

George had spotted her; he beamed and sat straighter in Barrow’s arms. 

“I can do that when I’m big, right, Mama?” he said as Mary stepped closer with more purpose. 

“When you’re big, you can run Downton however you’d like…” she said, taking one of his hands in hers. “As long as I think it’s a good idea…”

George turned back to Barrow. “See?”

“George, why don’t you let Mr. Barrow have a rest?” Mary said. “This is his party, after all, and I don’t think he’s so much as looked at his cake.”

“I can get him a piece!” George practically jumped out of Barrow’s arms and hurried to the servants’ hall table. Mary looked over at Barrow—there was a light in his eyes that had been dimmed for too long. 

“You have quite the retirement coming to you,” she said with a smile. Barrow ducked his head, a smile growing on his face. 

“He might change his tune when he realizes butlers do more than open doors.” 

Mary raised an eyebrow. “I’m not sure he will. The world he’ll grow up in is miles away from what we knew. You could well be Downton’s last butler. Well, a butler like _we_ understand it. I suppose Downton will always need _someone_ to oversee it all. But he may decide he likes serving his own tea…”

She threw Barrow a meaningful look, and he returned it with an easy grin that she hadn’t realized had been missing for some time. 

“Imagine that.” 

Just a bit too cheeky, if you squinted...but Mary supposed she was ready for some changes at Downton, too. 

“You’ll have to try and keep your heart from breaking,” she quipped. 

“Mr. Barrow, can you help me?” George called from across the room—two plates was proving too much for him...

“Of course I can.”

Mary remembered how Carson had been able to get everything sorted like magic—one minute, the mess was there, then suddenly it had vanished. At some point, the world lost its spark. Carson had been quick on his feet and clever about hiding things, that was all. 

But as she watched George stare at Barrow’s balancing act, taking one of the forks he’d procured almost from thin air with a wide-eyed excitement, that magic felt just as real as it had all those years before. 

* * *

**1930**

They’d gotten lucky with Master George, it seemed. He had his moments of temper and tears, of course, as all children did, but on the whole, he’d been sweet and jovial and a treat to have downstairs from time to time. 

But Miss Caroline...Mrs. Hughes didn’t like to make judgments about children, but the word “terror” crossed her mind more than once a week. She was clever as anything, but that only served to make her petulance more ferocious and unmanageable. And all her particularities...how Nanny managed to get any food in her at all, Mrs. Hughes didn’t know. (And while she didn’t dare ask Charlie, she wondered if Lady Mary had been much the same as a child). 

Today, the trip downstairs had reached a boiling point when Nanny Gregory had told Miss Caroline she couldn’t have any cake until tea time. This had resulted in the child screaming bloody murder and stamping her feet like Rumpelstiltskin about to tear himself in two. 

If Mrs. Hughes had her way, it’d be a sharp rap on the bottom...but Nanny Gregory was more hands off. Too hands off—she practically ran out of the room with the other children in tow, muttering about how Nanny Faircloth would be waiting upstairs. 

“I’ll come back down for her,” she assured Mrs. Hughes. “Better to do her on her own...she gets them all riled up otherwise.”

And off she’d gone, leaving the servants’ hall uninhabitable. Mrs. Hughes held back a sigh. Never, in all her years, had she felt so close to the edge of impertinence…

“What’s the matter down here?” Thomas poked his head in, and Miss Caroline whirled around, her screams turning into pitiful, whining sobs as she hurried to his side. 

“Nanny said I couldn’t have _any_ cake…” she sobbed, wiping her red eyes and doing her best impression of a Dickensian orphan.

“And as you can see, it’s a great tragedy,” Mrs. Hughes grumbled. The girl was going to send her into an early retirement...

Thomas bit back his amusement, looking down at Miss Caroline with his hands behind his back. 

“Well, if that’s what Nanny said, then we’ll have to listen,” he said brightly. 

Miss Caroline stumbled back as if struck. “No! Mr. Barrow, I need it _now_ …”

She tugged at his livery imploringly, but Thomas remained cool as anything, a placid smile on his face. 

“I can’t, Miss Caroline,” he said. “Suppose Nanny finds out, and we both get into trouble? Then what will we do?”

Caroline didn’t miss a beat. 

“We’ll say sorry!” 

Thomas chuckled. “That might work for you, Miss Caroline, but I don’t think Nanny finds me half as precious…”

Caroline stamped her foot, though more tepidly than before. 

“Mr. _Barrow_ …” she whined. “I’ll _faint_ if I don’t eat anything!”

And that was certainly a new tactic...

Thomas raised an eyebrow, exchanging a look with Mrs. Hughes. “You’ll _faint_?”

Caroline stood straighter, bottom lip stuck out in impudence. 

“Yes, I’ll faint and I’ll never get up ever ever _ever_!” she threatened.

“Will you indeed?” Thomas said, his smile almost a smirk. 

“I will!”

“Now, we can’t have that…” Thomas said, considering her. “I suppose I’ll have to carry you about until tea time.”

And he hoisted her up in his arms without another word. 

“You can’t, you have to work!” Caroline protested, though her arms were already about Thomas’s neck. For better or worse, she was almost fonder of Mr. Barrow than George was—and no wonder; he was one of the only servants who could put up with her for more than five minutes. 

“Oh, that’s no trouble.” Thomas’s grin had turned impish. “I’ll just toss you up here, like this.”

And up she went, half over Thomas’s left shoulder, like a sack of potatoes.

“No!” she shrieked through her laughter. 

“Then when this shoulder gets tired, we’ll just move you to the other one—” And up and over Miss Caroline went, still reeling with laughter. 

“Put me back!” she shouted. And Thomas complied, lowering her so they were face to face once more. 

“Well, what are we to do?” he said, bouncing her. “Hm?” 

She giggled. “Do it again, Mr. Barrow!”

“All right…” Thomas said. “Just once, and then we’ll find Nanny…”

On paper, the whole thing looked more like a reward for bad behavior...but as the crying had stopped without Miss Caroline getting a bite of cake, Mrs. Hughes supposed it could be considered a success.

And when Miss Caroline wrapped her arms tight about Thomas’s neck and kissed him on the cheek as they left the servants’ hall, she knew Mr. Barrow would agree with her. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! I have a million and a half little ideas for stuff with Barrow and the kids, so I wanted to wrangle them into manageable thematic bits and then put those into a series! So if you liked this, look out for more--I have some ideas for when the kids are grown that will probably be next, and/or some stuff that involved Richard as well! Very excited for all that!


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